Content feed from ElectronicIraq.net

Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail report that "a military operation said to target al-Qaeda has ended up targeting Sunni Muslims instead, creating new sectarian tensions. A U.S.-backed security operation launched last month has only targeted cities with majority Sunni populations such as Buhriz, Tahreer, Qatoon, Mafraq, and Hay in Diyala province, north of Baghdad. The operation has drawn more than 50,000 Iraqi soldiers."

Nearly a billion liters of raw sewage is dumped into Baghdad waterways each day -- enough to fill 370 Olympic-sized pool, that's according to a Reuter's report published today. It's an incredible story--and one rarely reported and one with tremendous public health consequences. The report tells of families living on the top floors of apartment buildings--their morning ritual is to carry jugs to a communal tap at street level and haul the day's water back up the stairs.

In the five years since the initial looting and pillaging of the Iraqi capital, thieves have stolen at least 32,000 items from some 12,000 archaeological sites across Iraq with no interference whatsoever from the occupying power. No funds have been appropriated by the American or Iraqi governments to protect the most valuable and vulnerable historical sites on Earth, even though experience has shown that just a daily helicopter overflight usually scares off looters. In 2006, the World Monuments Fund took the unprecedented step of putting the entire country of Iraq on its list of the most endangered sites.

During Obama's recent trip to the Middle East, he revealed an extremely dated way of thinking about Iraq, more or less reiterating the Iraq cosmology of those Bush administration officials that have been in charge since 2003. During a press conference in Amman on 22 July following a visit to Anbar where meetings with "Sunni tribal leaders" were high on the agenda, this tendency could be seen very clearly, with Obama consistently portraying the principal dynamic of Iraqi politics as a struggle between Shiites and Sunnis.

Tens of thousands of children who have enrolled in Jordan's public education system since King Abdullah II opened it up a year ago to all Iraqi students, regardless of their legal status. With the encouragement of the UN refugee agency and its partners, many Iraqi children have been leaving costly private institutions and joining public schools - like the one in Amman's Marka district that Laila attends. It is essential, says UNHCR, that all refugees continue to receive an education, which was not possible for the neediest before the king's decree.

On Monday King Abdullah of Jordan became the first Arab leader to visit Iraq since the invasion and occupation in 2003. Other regional powers have been engaging the country as violence has dipped. Bahrain is setting up an embassy (a diplomat was held hostage for two weeks in 2006), UAE has appointed an ambassador, and Egypt's considering sending an ambassador (their last envoy was killed in 2005). Iraq is making friends again--for now at least. Reuters has a sort of state-of-regional-relations roundup.

Samira Hussein, 36, walks out of the supermarket and slips behind the wheel of her car in the Karrada Maryam area of Baghdad near the heavily protected Green Zone. It is a scene that is played out day after day in countries all around the world, but in Iraq, even simple tasks for women such as running errands and driving are deeply significant. Hussein, a mother of four, stopped driving in late 2003 as security in Baghdad deteriorated – but got behind the wheel again earlier this year.

The Iraqi and US governments should do more to address Iraq's displacement crisis which has affected over four million people and threatens regional stability, a group of Iraqi and international non-governmental organizations has said.

Kathy Kelly writes from Amman, Jordan, demonstrating through the story of one mother and her son -- who's still in Iraq -- how violence is entrapping Iraq's boys and young men. In the process, she shows the ways in which US efforts in the name of security send dangerous messages and force painful choices on the young people who are the future of their country.

The city of Amman, Jordan, is awash with numerous colorful signs that proclaim independence, "Istiklal."  The word is found on posters and placards in store windows. It names a major thoroughfare, a hospital, and a shopping center.  Appreciation for independence is palpable, and this could be said for numerous cities and towns throughout the region, including Iraq, where past struggles for independence are commemorated by naming buildings and streets "Istiklal."  It reflects the love of independence and the longing for it.

Ali Ahmed, Dahr Jamial, and a handful of Iraqis in Baquba weigh in on the U.S. presidential election. "I'll believe the troops are gone from Iraq when they are no longer on our streets and their warplanes no longer bomb our homes," a local merchant told IPS. " All politicians are liars, even school children know this."

Rival political factions have slammed a United Nations proposal to settle disputes over control of a number of areas in the north of the country, arguing the recommendations are more likely to deepen their disagreements than resolve them.

More than five years after the invasion of Iraq -- just in case you were still waiting -- the oil giants finally hit the front page. Last Thursday, the New York Times led with this headline: "Deals with Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back." And who were these giants? ExxonMobil, Shell, Total and BP. What these firms got were mere "service contracts" -- as in servicing Iraq's oil fields -- not the sort of "production sharing agreements" that President Bush's representatives in Baghdad once dreamed of, and that would have left them in charge of those fields. Still, it was clearly a start.

Don't miss Brooklyn photographer Moises Saman's from Basra, Mosel and Sadr City over at the New York Times site. The slide show accompanies the paper's "What’s going right? And can it last?"

Kathy Kelly writes from Jordan with an appeal for an Iraqi doctor in need of an urgent surgery.  In the process, she gives us a window into the struggles of Iraq's doctors to support even one of their own through the ongoing catastrophe, so that they can support and heal their people now and in the time to come.

Conflict has undermined the potential of an entire generation of Iraqi children, UNICEF said today. The organization urged new momentum to reach vulnerable children inside the country with assistance.

The United Nations Children's Fund said today it is scaling up its emergency operation in Iraq to address the basic needs of more than 360,000 vulnerable children inside the strife-torn nation. After five years of conflict, more than 800,000 Iraqi children are unable to go to school and only 40 per cent can access safe water, according to the agency.

Sixty-five media workers killed in Iraq in 2007, with little investigation into their deaths. An Arab charter that gives governments control of what satellite channels can broadcast. Up to five years in prison for insulting the President in Egypt or Tunisia. This is what journalists working in the region can expect, says the International Federation of Journalists in a new report.

Monday June 30, 2008 could be one of those fateful dates in Iraqi politics that will remain mostly unnoticed by the outside world. June 30 is the new deadline set by Iraq’s electoral commission for forming coalitions for this autumn’s provincial elections. The deadline for registering political parties expired with some 500 entities having registered. The question is whether any of these parties are capable of amalgamating into larger alliances that could mount a challenge to the established elites represented by the core components of the Maliki government. In the previous local elections in January 2005, it was mainly those elites that excelled in the art of coalition building prior to the elections.